China's $1T Plan to Shake Up the Economic Order | Hacker News Reader

China's $1T Plan to Shake Up the Economic Order

nytimes.com

189 pointspdog186 comments

“Pursuing protectionism is just like locking oneself in a dark room,” Mr. Xi told business leaders at the World Economic Forum in January.

I might agree with Mr. Xi, but the Great Firewall of China is a higher wall of protectionism than anything the West has against the Chinese. Forcing foreign companies to partner with Chinese companies and then transfer all of their closely held technologies and industrial processes to China seems pretty protectionist also. Maybe in Chinese culture being able to lock oneself in a dark room is a positive?

Those two aren't mutually exclusive. America is an incredibly protectionist country as well if you aren't aware.

http://www.eulerhermes.com/economic-research/publications/Pa...

In the past 3 years, America has introduced far more protectionist measures than other countries.

Is there any other source than that chart? I was looking for a supporting document to explain those figures but there's nothing apparently on that link besides that chart, which looks impressive but without context is as good as meaningless.

edit:

So Googling this, I came across this article, which agrees with the trends, but also notes:

But the vast majority of the actions — 89 of the 145 — came in the form of anti-dumping and other cases aimed at alleged unfair behaviour by trading partners. Of those, more than 40 were aimed at the trade in steel and other metals.

The global steel sector has been roiled by a collapse in prices blamed on China and its production of more of the metal than it can use. That has led to a growing number of anti-dumping cases in the US and EU and a backlash against Beijing’s bid to be recognised as a market economy in the WTO.

https://www.ft.com/content/2dd0ecc4-3768-11e6-a780-b48ed7b61...

They are apparently using data from Global Trade Alerts http://www.globaltradealert.org/

I good intro would be their 19th Global Trade Alert Report http://www.globaltradealert.org/gta-analysis/global-trade-pl...

Not to be pedantic (It's an unfortunate consequence of nuance), but just so you know, there is no country called "America." We have north, central, and south American continents with many countries; the U.S is one country in North America.

The name of the country is "United States of America" or you could say America as a shorted version, so there really is a county called America. If you said America to most people in the world they are pretty much going think the USA. BTW, you in your post used the other shorted version "U.S.". Not to be padantic or anything :)

There is no other country on the American continents with America in its name.

That's fair, but many of my fellow American's in other countries within the continents think it is arrogant (I now realize that typing 'America' into wikip redirects to the US).

I think of the United States as a reasonable shorthand because I believe in state sovereignty as supreme; Still unlike anything else in the America's. My terminology and ideas are considered antiquated, but I like to believe nuance is important, and the history of the terms we use can inform how we think about these concepts. "Often copied, never duplicated."

You can look at every request for retaliation and amendment on the WTO here: https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/dispu_status_e....

For example the US lost on subsidies for cotton and music intellectual properties infringement:

https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds160_e...

https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds267_e...

LOL nothing compared to China. China partners with startups, steals their IP and then escapes back to the homeland and no course of legal action. They get all the access to the West's markets and then give almost no access to their own. Their companies are all backed by the government and it's rigged in their favor. They cheat constantly, check out the EU scandal where they smuggle goods into London don't pay equal taxes as the EU companies, beat out competition who is playing fairly and then jack up prices.

Their immigration policies are one of the worst in the world. Human rights violations insanely high. They purchase our movie studios and then force on them Chinese propaganda and nothing negative on China ever. America is one of the least protectionist countries in the world if not the least.

China doesn't even allow its own citizens to read about things like the Tiananmen square massacre. If they could censor the rest of the world they would.

Even their citizens abroad will tow their party's line [0]

0. http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-essential-educati...

Bit pedantic but it's 'toe the line' [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toe_the_line

>They purchase our movie studios and then force on them Chinese propaganda and nothing negative on China ever.

They are free to do what they want with what they have bought and paid for.

>if not the least

Lol is right.

Don't you know, Hollywood has never pushed American propaganda before...

Umm I don't think you are getting the fundamental logic here. America has pushed propaganda, but they also allow movies that make America look bad: botched CIA missions true or not, slavery, different look at revered historical figures, greedy American leaders/FBI/CIA or whatever. They don't purposefully stop what makes America look bad. China does, there is a huge difference in that. Secondly, the government itself doesn't control what gets pushed out (in very rare classified instances .001% they have before) the free market does. Some audiences love pro American movies, some love anti-American but it's capitalism not propaganda

What you're witnessing is manufactured consent[1]. There is no need for the crude methods of propaganda here because it's not even necessary. Compare that with China; people there are fully conscious of government propaganda. From the SMH article, they expected the west to be a land of freedom and democratization of ideas, but what they end up finding is that it more or less is the same thing.

> [2] "A lot of them are PRC students who migrated to Australia or come here to study. I think they are quite ambivalent about Australia, and China. Culturally and emotionally they still identify with China, but they don't like the corruption, pollution, propaganda or the regime. So they migrate here and they have some perception about this country, that it's beautiful, clean, prosperous, there is press freedom and the media is objective, not like the propaganda in China. "Here they expect the media to do a lot better than the media they're used to back there. When they realise that the media here is just as one-track mind about these things as the Chinese side but exactly the opposite, they find it really hard to reconcile with what they're experiencing."

Personally, I find that even more worrying. People here seem to think they are free-thinkers not subject to propaganda when really, the more "oppressed" people have way more understanding of what's going on in the world.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent

[2] http://www.smh.com.au/national/chinese-media-a-threat-to-soc...

But in the West the media is not state run. The Chinese government decides what to run and clearly that is propaganda. In America the media is controlled by 2 political parties and they are either pro or anti government. The media in the West can run any content they wish and it is up to the free market to determine if they can survive. You can listen to whatever viewpoint or angle. CNN, Fox, Huffpo, Brietbart everyone is telling you different angles it is up to you to decide. This unbiased media you are referring to is an unachievable utopia. The Western system is far superior to state run propaganda and is the best system we can realistically have. If there were a better system, through the free market it will replace the old.

Far superior to state run propaganda as to what?

Far superior for manufacturing consent? Sure. The western system of propaganda is far more competitive, innovative, or you can call it distributed in the way it hides its agenda in a network of proxies of capital instruments, which is exactly what it would evolve into with the free market. But what is dangerous about it is that this mode of propaganda is smarter than the people. In states with state-run propaganda, the people are smarter than the propaganda.

This is a well put thought: > But what is dangerous about it is that this mode of propaganda is smarter than the people. In states with state-run propaganda, the people are smarter than the propaganda.

Your own or inspired by some book ?

It had been my hypothesis. Julian Assange said it better:

> The west has fiscalised its basic power relationships through a web of contracts, loans, shareholdings, bank holdings and so on. In such an environment it is easy for speech to be "free" because a change in political will rarely leads to any change in these basic instruments. Western speech, as something that rarely has any effect on power, is, like badgers and birds, free. In states like China, there is pervasive censorship, because speech still has power and power is scared of it. We should always look at censorship as an economic signal that reveals the potential power of speech in that jurisdiction.

Recently I found Slavoj Zizek had even better criticism:

> The US doesn't treat prisoners as brutally – because of its technological priority, it simply does not need the openly brutal approach (which it is more than ready to apply when needed). But this is why the US is an even more dangerous threat to our freedom than China: its measures of control are not perceived as such, while Chinese brutality is openly displayed. In a country such as China the limitations of freedom are clear to everyone, with no illusions about it. In the US, however, formal freedoms are guaranteed, so that most individuals experience their lives as free and are not even aware of the extent to which they are controlled by state mechanisms.

Good quotes. Thank you. Reminded me of Neil Postman's comparison between Orwellian world in "1984" vs huxleyan in "brave new wolrd". I Postman made a lot of similar comparison in his book Amusing ourselves to death.

For State run propaganda, there is never any alternative. In the West system I can start my own news org and run it. Huffpo and Brietbart were started in response to the monopolies of the 2 parties and were started with very little in capital and are the top 50 most visited sites in the world top 5 news sites.

Self determinism and free choice thwart state run propaganda. Manufactured consent is not controlled by the government but by a whole bunch of competing sources that can be defeated. I can think of no more effective system aside from ours in which all the knowledge is free and accessible. Aside from new technology that lessons the effects, increase of critical thinking and knowledge are the only solutions. In this country anyone is free to provide this through news, education or whatever other medium they devise.

> "The Chinese government decides what to run and clearly that is propaganda. In America the media is controlled by 2 political parties.."

Is this thread attempting to argue that either means of propagating propaganda is more beneficial than the other for a people?

> "..CNN, Fox, Huffpo, Brietbart everyone is telling you different angles it is up to you to decide."

2 parties OR state-ran -- and no other option for news consumption. Modern media, eh?

China wields formal control where in the US this is achieves via peer pressure and social manipulation/control. Anytime something shocking is revealed reporters end up losing thier jobs, sometimes be suicided or at worst end up like Assange.

What absolute falsehoods. Ask Woodward and Bernstein if they got "suicided." America has not yet fallen to China or Russia's level of cynical censorship acceptance.

It looks like your account has been HN primarily for political arguments lately. Would you please not do that? It's an abuse of the site.

HN is for the gratification of intellectual curiosity, and political argument—especially the flamewar kind, which it inexorably degrades to—is destructive of that.

Hey, just saw your comment. I agree with your reasoning and am happy to comply. I assume you will pass the same message along to users who start such discussions in the first place.

I generally only comment on issues I know about. Outside of technology, history and civics is a focus of mine, hence the comments.

Perhaps deleting comments like the parent (made on a throwaway account, apparently) would be a good idea. It would stop folks like me who feel compelled to reply to perceived propaganda from doing so.

The alternative is for everyone who feels strongly about political issues to create throwaways for such HN discussions (see parent), to avoid retribution on their main accounts. I doubt that's a world you'd want to moderate, or that I'd want to live in. (Not suggesting I'd go in for such sock-puppet account shenanigans, but it's the limiting case that comes to mind.)

Anyway, I suspect political stories will always provoke political discussion. If you'd prefer not to have this on the site, I'd humbly suggest flagging and removing such stories.

EDIT: Your point about flame wars is well-taken, however. I could certainly have highlighted the history and facts of American press freedom in a more constructive way here.

As an Indian who has worked and lived in the US, I wholeheartedly agree with the parent.

That which needs force outside is achieved via self censorship in the US. This is a fact. A sampling of NyT/WaPo pieces on wars US has fought published right before they were begun shows this quite well.

Then there is racist stereotyping of Asian cultures which often gets a pass under various high sounding titles ending with '-rights'.

> When they realise that the media here is just as one-track mind about these things

Yes. When I got access to the internet, 25 years ago or so (only a few years after we got rid of communism in Romania), I was shocked to discover this about the US. In Romania, we had state propaganda and we knew it about what it was. It was everywhere and nobody believed it.

In the US, state propaganda is also everywhere, but everyone accepts it as fact. ("America is the greatest country in the world", "the US government would never do something like that", "we leave nobody behind", "we defend freedom"... I could probably come up with dozens of obviously false things that all Americans believe.)

Fun fact I learned recently: the US army provides a ton of props and consulting for free if they approve of the way a movie will portray them.

Fun "fact" as well: they won't arrest you, or worse, if they don't like it.

Have you heard of the 'patriot act'

Not the poster you're replying to but I have. I can't say that I'm fond of it.

I've never heard it being used against a movie director for portraying the US military unfavorably though.

I don't see how stealing IP is protectionism. Theft, sure, but not protectionism.

I would say it's the other way around.

Negotiating international trade agreements with the purpose of limiting the flow of information by means of "IP" is the very definition of protectionism.

Mutual IP agreements are not protectionism just an equal playing field. Protecting domestic companies, but not foreign ones on the other hand is the definition of protectionism.

PS: Abolishing IP would also be a level playing field, but again that's not what they are doing.

If you think China's IP practices are intended to create an equal playing field, you're more than just a little bit naive.

Also mostly Chinese domestic companies' protectionism is about the same thing as the European version of the same is : getting enough Chinese people jobs so they don't revolt.

ok sure. we suspect China does all these things under the cover. But what are we going to do about it? Are we just going to shut ourselves in border and let China take these developing markets?

>China partners with startups, steals their IP and then escapes back to the homeland and no course of legal action.

Where have I heard of something like that in US history class?

> He learned of the American interest in developing similar machines, and he was also aware of British laws against exporting the designs. He therefore memorized as much as he could and departed for New York in 1789. Some people of Belper called him "Slater the Traitor", as they considered his move a betrayal of the town where many earned their living at Strutt's mills.[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Slater

It doesn't matter what America does. Mr. Xi is hypocritical either way.

China and the US have similar policies re: economic protectionism (as you point out).

We have very different policies re: the openness of information. "Freedom of Speech" vs "The Great Firewall of China/kidnapping booksellers"

The lack of Freedom of Speech in the most populous country in the world is a tragedy, full stop.

Meanwhile, it would be cool to see less protectionist trade policies on both sides.

Volume DNE extent.

None of that matters. China is spending hundreds of billions to "support" several countries. In reality to own those countries and to bring business back to China. In corrupt countries about 10-20% of the total is going to the elite (cost of doing business) and they'll never forget that China made it possible. If they do, China will undoubtedly remind them.

Also, whatever the cost, China is not spending that much anyway: the engineers are Chinese, probably the workers are Chinese, the tech and materials where possible are Chinese so a nice chunk of that money if flowing back to China. Brilliant, especially since China has a lot of $$ reserves.

And they made this possible by co-opting authocrats or wannabe authocrats like Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orban, along with other corrupt leaders. I just wonder if they play to build their silk road railway through Ukraine. The Chinese bought an area bigger than Belgium in this country which are using for agriculture.

It's going to be an interesting test. No government that I know of was able to both squelch information while also winning technologically and economically.

But, I'm not sure if any of those previous governments paid their scientists and engineers well. So, maybe China can win by just paying everyone off.

I'm struck by China's ability to attempt large, ambitious projects like this, compared to America's inability to do, well, anything really.

The largest infrastructure project I'm aware of in the USA is California's High Speed Rail (~$60B+), was approved a decade ago and is barely making any progress. The federal government is in complete gridlock. The most ambitious legislation passed in the last decade, the ACA, caused endless partisan warfare. Meanwhile, obvious policy wins like allowing more immigration [1] are not even discussed.

I've been following US politics for the last 2-3 presidents (going back to George W Bush), and it makes me very pessimistic. I don't see how a country can expected to be exceptional, or even above average, with politics that are so dysfunctional.

Perhaps, though, I'd have a different view if I could see things from inside, within China?

[1] http://paulgraham.com/95.html

I reckon it's really easy when there's one party in power that controls pretty much everything in the country - you just say it's in the nation's interest, most of the party is similar minded and will agree, and billions are immediately available for the project.

Very different than the US and EU, sadly...

Aren't the projects in China executed at complete disregard to the rights of individual citizens? I.e. if your house is in the way, sorry, we'll give you some laughable amount of money and send police over to brutalize you until you leave. Under such conditions, it's easy to make lots of change quickly (in such spirit, Stalin was even more efficient - he essentially enslaved a part of his nation via Gulags and used the free slave labor to get done quickly various massively ambitious projects around the country).

Another aspect is environment protection - it's much easier to build infrastructure if you don't mind wrecking the natural environment around it.

I haven't looked it up, but I've heard from a local that if you are displaced by a government project you will "be rich". In his eyes it was similar to winning the lottery, if less extreme.

It does depend on the area

I remember coming across a few blocks of old densely packed single-family brick buildings in Shanghai that were about to be torn down. Each building had a large hand written banner above their entrance, half of them praising the communist party for its compassion or saying long live Chairman Mao (my interpretation was that they were hoping for mercy for being such loyal party members), the other half cussing out the party and local officials

I think the idea was that hanging pictures of Chairman Mao all over their building would make the government look bad if they knocked it down.

People are not stupid..nowadays some villagers in China get ~10M USD to move away for real estate construction.. this is the average number for an entire village in Shenzhen.. you call this laughable money?

false, the chinese government cannot directly use police or government agents to force people out of their homes during what's called (cai fang/house demolition). instead i've heard the use of 3rd party mercenaries to clear the way, but dont quote me on that. for the record, the government does reimburse the individuals which is quite significant, but usually the amount pales in comparison to the land rental price. typically the reimbursement is some stipend per person living under the domicile plus the right to pruchase, at a significant discount, a new home farther away. for example, say you lived in san francisco and the government was re-zoning for a highway, you'd get cash plus the right to buy something in a suburb of sacremento at a pretty nice discount. agree with some comment about it being the equivalent of a lottery.

Blame the fragmenting US population identity-wise, which has been accelerated by rhetoric on the left. Fewer and fewer people identify as an "American" with each passing year meaning that it is harder and harder to push policies that benefit "Americans".

I lived in China for 1.5 years in 2005 to 2006 and culturally, once you pull back the facade of language and food, it wasn't terribly different than how America felt in the 80s (earliest decade I can remember and the last decade where there was still a semblance of cultural uniformity and support for pro-America policies)

Examples of pro "American" policies that leftist rhetoric has blocked?

Wouldn't the more right wing desire to slash funding for government handouts be a more likely cause of stalled programs? Neoliberalism's weird incestuous desire to have 20 different planning committees write papers on the viability of public works makes things take forever, but also, constant arbitrary slashing of budgets every 4 to 8 years by those on the right puts a bullet in the head of these projects. Blaming the left misses at least 50% of the problem. Also, the left is far more into the concept of redistribution of wealth through public works, even if the centrist democrats filter that through moronic means-testing and bloated committees. Framing this as some lack-of-patriotism issue is completely missing the issues both sides cause in this situation, that would be solved by a party to the left of the useless neoliberal democrats.

I kind of doubt that a lack of nationalism brought by "left" rhetoric is the problem if "small government" is a rallying cry of those that have "not left"as part of their identity. To pay for large projects, you need taxes.

Dictatorship does make it easier to get things done. It seems like you americans are getting there, though.

Right, because all of Trumps excetive orders have been followed. The courts did not shoot them down or anything......

China's ability to do this is just an example of Cheops' Law: You can do anything you want to if you have a sufficient supply of expendable labor.

China doesn't have to deal with hostile entities like Iran and Wahabi arabs. I bet Chinese are proud to be Chinese, I am a naturalised US citizen and being proud of being American is seen as racist.

I am a naturalised US citizen and being proud of being American is seen as racist.

This certainly isn't a universally held belief.

I think it probably isn't a widely held belief.

Lol most of the Chinese is under the Chinese government brainwash via state propaganda and censored internet. You obviously don't know anyone who is from Hong Kong. Ask them how they feel about being Chinese. They will spit in your face

China has to deal with India and Vietnam, which are hostile entities in at least some ways. There are many Uigurs who don't seem proud of being Chinese.

Maybe because Asia has recently entered this phase while USA (and Europe) did their explosive growth long ago and now have to deal with maintenance and migration rather than exciting new developments ?

The Republican party has been ambivalent or against new spending on infrastructure in recent history. Trump had some genuine appeal for being in favor of it. He even threw out the same $1T number: http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/306490-gop-braces-for...

Not that I actually expect that money to materialize.

The "Belt and Road" scheme is well known. The first container freight train from Yiwu, China to Barking, England, arrived January 15, 2017. Coast to coast travel time: two weeks.[1] Conveniently, China uses a 4' 8.5" track gauge, unlike Russian metric gauge, so they can move freight cars all the way without a gauge change.

Soon, of course, heavier rails, longer trains, faster trains, more trains, better gradients, more electrification, alternate routes... China is funding high speed rail from Belgrade to Budapest. Now that's an infrastructure scheme.

[1] http://www.bbc.com/news/business-38654176

To add to that, the SCMP newspaper just released a visual a couple days ago explaining various projects.

The five main projects of the Belt and Road Initiative http://multimedia.scmp.com/news/china/article/One-Belt-One-R...

This is a very vice visual - thank you for that.

What an absolutely amazing project! The interactive explanation is pretty slick as well.

"The connection to the server was reset while the page was loading." Can't see it -- blocked in mainland China.

SCMP is blocked? I thought SCMP had been bought by a pro-mainland owner and was now taking pro-mainland government positions.

Yeah, but they still have some editorial freedom. Their reporting skews pro-mainland but there are quite a few anti-mainland articles as well.

With that timetable,compared to sea shipping we're talking about 3-5x faster time, but the cost will be about double - $8K-10K/container. But of course that saves money in warehousing and financing. So financially, today it makes sense for the more expensive goods, at $1.5M per container. And it's best because there's not a lot of capacity vs sea routes.

But i wonder: could those prices, with more/better trains etc, become close to sea shipping, such that aliexpress, which is extremely cheap but uses very slow sea shipping, start using rail ?

Because at those timelines, even if using a local fulfillment center, the storage period is very short, so the cost becomes quite low, and without lots of trouble, suddenly aliexpress can offer much cheaper goods than Amazon, all across Europe, with fast shipping. Heck, they may not even need to build warehouses, using uber like warehouse model(i.e. flexe).

> But i wonder: could those prices, with more/better trains etc, become close to sea shipping, such that aliexpress, which is extremely cheap but uses very slow sea shipping, start using rail ?

Absolutely! China's labor costs are not the cheapest anymore, but their tight infrastructure saves more than enough money to keep over-all production costs extremely competitive. This is simply a continuation of their economic strategy.

However, I doubt Europe will let Aliexpress dominate... China will be required to let other companies purchase and ship out of China as well.

Even if this only makes the e-commerce battle balanced, that's a big win for Aliexpress, after all the Amazon investment.

But I suspect China will find a way.Maybe it would just be as simple as cheaper costs in the Asian part. Maybe it will be nudging Chinese companies to be "patriotic" now that it doesn't cost them more. If there's a will, there's a way.

Container ships are about 2.5 times as fuel efficient as trains. I'm not sure what percentage of total cost that is, but I imagine it is significant.

The distance is bound to be smaller and offset some of that, no?

Trains can also run on electricity. Ships are far away from that.

Ships are also incredibly unregulated on the type of fuel they use and their emissions, which, while bad for the environment, lowers the cost significantly.

> aliexpress, which is extremely cheap but uses very slow sea shipping

This depends on the destination country. Recently the dutch postal service has entered some sort of agreement with aliexpress, all my stuff is here within a week nowadays.

I just love how everything about China is huge! The three gorges dam, the grand canal, the great firewall and the great wall, the nation itself, and now this. Befits a nation whose founding myth itself is centered on an engineering project.

According to thablackbull's link, gauge changes take place in Khorgos between China and Kazakhstan and at the Belarus-Poland border. Much of the journey is through the former Soviet Union.

Sorry, I should have realized the route went through gauge changes, even though both ends are the same gauge. That's a pain. It's a routine operation, but a big one.

Not sure what they do about loading gauge. The UK has many limited loading gauge lines, due to old tunnels and bridges. No way will a double stack container train fit in the UK. Here's a brief world loading gauge summary.[1] The leftmost outline is the general UK limit; some lines have more clearance, especially the ones that connect to Eurotunnel. The next one is the general EU limit, small by world standards. Note the round top. AAR Plate B is the basic US limit; any Plate B boxcar can go on any US mainline track. 95% of US track accepts AAR Plate C, the "hi-cube" boxcar. AAR Plate H, 20' 3" high [2] is for double-stack container cars. Union Pacific and BNSF have upgraded to that level.

China and Russia go in for big loading gauges like the US, being big countries with long distances to cross. Watch for China lobbying the EU to upgrade for heavier freight.

[1] http://emdx.org/rail/Gabarit/ComparaisonGabaritsEuropenEtAAR... [2] http://www.icrr.net/plates.htm

The train goes to a yard off High Speed One (built to the standard European UIC GC gauge) rather than anywhere on the domestic network. It won't be double-stacked anyway, as the structure gauge through Europe is too small for that to be possible. It'll be single-stacked 9'6" boxes on standard wagons.

According to the articles below, they still have to switch to Russian gauge when entering Kazakhstan and back when entering Poland.

the "belt and road" is a nothing burger.

"The Chinese government had hoped to assemble a weightier guest list to Mr Xi’s premier international forum, which is occurring just months before he formally begins a second five-year term in office. But many heads of state and government, especially from G7 and OECD nations, were reluctant to participate in what they thought might be little more than a propaganda coup for China’s ruling Communist party.

Only seven EU heads of state or government, most from smaller eastern European countries, accepted Mr Xi’s invitation, while Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta will be the only top-level African VIP."

https://www.ft.com/content/f89060ac-36c7-11e7-bce4-9023f8c0f...

Sadly this article seems to be locked behind a paywall.

"Conveniently, China uses a 4' 8.5" track gauge, unlike Russian metric gauge, so they can move freight cars all the way without a gauge change."

Aeh, when was the last time you looked at a world map? You realize that the trains all have to go through Russia?

With 60+ countries agreed to attend the event, Its interesting to note: India refused to take part on this OBOR project. China's arch rival Japan sent a official team, but India refused to attend the submit.

China repeatedly blocked India's move to Ban terrorist Azad[1], blocked their NSG bid and their flip-flop on Arunachal. so India prefers to stay away from China-led project.

Russia is watchful about rising Chinese influence in their regions. Once they used to be major partner and China played minor role. Now the trend reversed.Russia knows that too.

[1] http://indianexpress.com/article/india/china-united-nations-... [2]http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/outlier-china-preve...

And Chinese media, says: India and Russia tipped to be the big winners from China’s massive ‘Belt and Road' investment: http://www.scmp.com/business/article/2094224/india-and-russi...

the event isn't that impressive

"The Chinese government had hoped to assemble a weightier guest list to Mr Xi’s premier international forum. But many heads of state and government, especially from G7 and OECD nations, were reluctant to participate in what they thought might be little more than a propaganda coup for China’s ruling Communist party.

Only seven EU heads of state or government, most from smaller eastern European countries, accepted Mr Xi’s invitation"

https://www.ft.com/content/f89060ac-36c7-11e7-bce4-9023f8c0f...

The scary part is china's protectionism. Small nations and businesses have so little possibilities to operate in china without getting robbed of IP or being outcompeted by state supported domestic ventures.

I fear the future of China being stronger superpower than the USA.

Protectionism has never made a country strong.

Seems to be working pretty well for China so far.

Worked pretty well for the US in the 1800s.

This is demonstrably false, and actually the opposite of most countries that have successfully developed. I was searching for "South Korea protectionism history" to find articles for a great example (as SK practiced heavily protectionist policies in the immediate post-war decades), and this came up: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/sep/09/eu.glo...

Protectionism can be very successful for countries with underdeveloped economies.

Hell the icon of "free trade and capitalism" developed under protectionism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protectionism_in_the_United_St...

Every nation needs protectionism to help its industries. It's only when you have strong stable industries/companies that you become anti-protectionism because you want your native companies to have access to foreign markets.

There aren't any countries which haven't done it in one way or another - from Singapore and Hong Kong loading up on US treasuries, to Japan's eye wateringly high car subsidies in the 50s to America (from 1800s-1945).

"Free trade" is simply the philosophy of pulling up the development ladder after your country has already ascended and "the theory of comparative advantage" is the dogma that presumes that comparative advantage is both immutable and static.

Every "strong" country today became strong via theft, protectionism and mercantilism. And once a country became strong, they expanded/colonized/etc and then supported "free" trade.

There isn't a greater example of this than the US. We stole all kinds of tech from the british/europe and then protected our industries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protectionism_in_the_United_St...

It's how our nascent industries developed in the US. Without protectionism, all our industries would have been dominated by european companies.

Pretty much every "Introduction to Economics" class will feature the Infant Industry Argument in its syllabus. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant_industry_argument)

pretty sure the world doesn't want an authoritarian dictatorship like China, who acts like a retarded bully with Taiwan and Dali Lama, who oppresses its own people in hong kong and xinjiang, who is belligerent with most of its neighbors like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, India.

The world isn't exactly thrilled with the US, who has acted like a retarded bully across the world.

so the world should only allow USA bully other countries and regions?

The "China vs America" narrative is unnecessary.

If China wants to spend a trillion dollars on infrastructure to develop their region that's a great thing for America too.

Counterintuitively, it could even be better for the US than China. Eventually the demand for low-margin, subsidized, Chinese steel will flatten, while the demand for high-margin American technology and cultural products will grow.

without IP these high margin American technology is copyable, which China has already shown they can do that.

American technology companies don't rely on IP restrictions as much as they used to. You couldn't copy Facebook, Google, Apple, or Amazon's products and services effectively on a global scale even if they had no IP restrictions.

And China is the second largest market for American movies, which absolutely require IP law to function. So I think this concern is overstated.

Sure. But I predict in 10 years we will all buy Huawei networking kit and everyone will have forgotten there ever was a company called Cisco (for example).

Huawei will shamelessly give away all your data to the Chinese government.

At the very least it looks like Cisco doesn't willingly do that with the NSA.

That should count for something.

Else we'll have to learn to trade like the Chinese, and it's almost inconceivable - they'll fuck you the first chance they get, like some third world shithole, they have no principles in my experience.

It's clear that the Chinese are playing economics to win, while the West is playing like it's still just a game.

It's kinda weird when you think about it. A Western manager thinks that Chinese or Indians are content to do as they are told and lack the ability or ambition to compete, so just outsource the work. But the truth is they are just as smart as anyone, and have the same aspirations as everyone else and are ruthless about getting it just as the West was in the imperial colonial days.

Well, I don't care about that, I just want to get what we agreed on, not get good quality samples and then subpar shit that uses cheaper metal for the end product. Also if you want quality control, you need to have your own man doing that as the factory just doesn't give a fuck.

I get that it's all cheaper, if that's the problem let it be more expensive, not lower quality.

China has shown that they are very adept at copying American high-tech innovation.

* Facebook: WeChat/Weibo

* Google: Baidu

* Apple: already being made in China, clones everywhere

* Amazon: Alibaba

re: Facebook

On the contrary, WeChat is leaps and bounds ahead of Facebook Messenger (which is a more direct comparison). If you've watched Facebook Messenger over time, it's actually Facebook Messenger that's aspiring to be the WeChat of the west.

I was intrigued by Tencent's offer of 1TB of storage, installed the app and it immediately started uploading all of my phone's content to their cloud. Haha, great fucking service, just amazing.

Actually Facebook has shamelessly copy-catted WeChat continuously over the last 2 years

We prefer to use the term, seeking inspiration as opposed to copying, over here =P

Some Chinese products are better, but PLEASE remove Baidu from that list. Baidu has been ridiculous for the past few years: I can't find anything on Baidu, pretty much the entire first page is full of irrelevant ads; all my Chinese friends are complaining about that too.

I use Baidu Maps every time I visit China. Heavily disappointed, it comes nowhere near Google Maps's quality.

Baidu often gives me better results than Google for Chinese search queries, particularly when looking for pages not blocked in mainland to share with people there.

I (as well as my Chinese friends) were looking for Chinese queries. Couldn't find useful stuff. I ended up using Bing. :(

Google copied baidu not the other way around. And how is Alibaba a copy of Amazon... It's nothing like Amazon in terms of how it actually works and make money. An Alibaba in the US doesn't even exist.

> Google copied baidu not the other way around

How so?

They didn't. Google predates Baidu by two years. It's possible they could be talking about a specific technology, but not likely. Google had a Chinese subsidiary at one point in time, but stopped bothering as the government got in their way and assisted Baidu at every turn. Like with most situations where a foreign company competes with a Chinese one.

And that's before you get into the fact that China really doesn't want any foreign info-based companies operating in its borders, given their heavy propaganda machine. They'll tolerate it only until they can clone it and expel it.

Read my comment above, inform yourself.

The founder of Baidu Robin Li published his RankDex paper in 1997, a year before Larry Page's PageRank in 1998. And Larry was clearly aware of RankDex when he founded Google.

Here's what Wikipedia says in its PageRank entry:

>A small search engine called "RankDex" from IDD Information Services designed by Robin Li was, since 1996, already exploring a similar strategy for site-scoring and page ranking.[16] The technology in RankDex would be patented by 1999[17] and used later when Li founded Baidu in China.[18][19] Li's work would be referenced by some of Larry Page's U.S. patents for his Google search methods.[20]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank#cite_ref-20

I don't think Google is a Baidu clone but in the cavalier way that people accuse other people of copying the timeline only supports Larry copying Robin Li.

Today I learned. Thanks.

https://qz.com/981277/the-fast-furious-franchise-is-huge-in-...

Hollywood movies do well in China but aren't particularly profitable.

> The "China vs America" narrative is unnecessary.

It's central to the current world event. The major theme of the 21st century is going to be china's growth in power vs the US.

Power is a zero sum game after all. If china's power increases, it's going to come at the expense of the lone superpower.

> If China wants to spend a trillion dollars on infrastructure to develop their region that's a great thing for America too.

A china-centered economic order isn't a "great thing for America".

> Eventually the demand for low-margin, subsidized, Chinese steel will flatten, while the demand for high-margin American technology and cultural products will grow.

What makes you think that china isn't going to take over the high-end steel market too?

Unless you think chinese are intellectually incapable of developing high-end steel...

If they don't all die of lung cancer from the massive pollution they deal with.

Bravo China. Instead of overspending on military conquer the world thru trade and investment.

I also applaud that idea.

But I do wonder if it's possible to protect/expand trade without military activity. Historically it seems military expansion is the tip of the spear for trade expansion.

Nixon expanded trade without the military.

Other than that... except for the awful Iraq situation, I don't remember any kind of gunboat diplomacy post WW2.

Edit: nevermind, Iran.

There are plenty of examples in the late 20th century where military activity wasn't a help: Taiwan and South Korea have succeeded despite their military challenges -- and spend basically nothing militarily protecting their trade.

They can only do that because someone else is subsidizing a large part of their defense (the US). Without that they would have been conquered by NK and China long ago.

Ironically, it is the US overspending in military which is part of what is driving his economic push for China instead of trying to compete militarily.

The best example is probably the opium wars between China and Britain.

Historically the superpower role has shifted hands thru wars. But not with the superpower in direct conflict with the ascending power. The British empire fell apart after 2nd world war in which Britain was a victor. However Britain was bankrupt and all capital that could move had fled to USA.

and that's what people also criticize China for; looking the other way just to make a buck.

I'm not sure this is all that much better for the countries that end up with their critical infrastructure in Chinese hands.

If any country ever has problems with relationship to China going way south, they can go the Chavez route and nationalize it.

If others weren't providing some of the military security china wouldn't be able to do what it does

Uhm, yeah, well the Soviet Union also conquered quite a bit through investment.

The member states and allies were willing participants, but we all know the threat of open or covert military and economic action was always implied and played a huge role.

I found this talk with Niall Ferguson and Samantha Power pretty fascinating about the US - China power balance changing. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8yghOc-lMIM

Just one mindblowing fact from the talk - China has poured more concrete in the last two years than the US in the last hundred.

It's like everything in Dan Ligon's satirical video from 10 years ago came true:

http://cargocollective.com/danligon/filter/current-tv/Ha-Ha-...

China is a hot mass, people look at it as valuable energy, but it seems it lacks structure to be able to handle itself without risk of collapse. I don't wish them to fail, I just wish things to evolve smoothly and peacefully.

> it seems it lacks structure to be able to handle itself without risk of collapse.

Could you clarify? China was stable for like a millennium while Europe was fighting each other to no end.

I meant as internal structure, not international stability.

I don't know what that means.

Thank you for the link; Harvard Kennedy School talks and guest lectures are almost always a fascinating watch.

Shameless plug: the former president of Tunisia (my country) was invited for a talk there around a month ago[1].

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1aviBRogZY

China has 1.1 billion more people than the US. They have bet big on megalopolis ( the bejing centered, shanghai centered and the chonging centered ). Combined, these 3 megalopolis will have a population larger than the US. China has 110 cities with 1 million people. The US has 10. And china is at 55% urbanization while the US is 80%+ urban so china still has hundreds of millions of people to urbanize.

Also, some economists say that data is the new "resource" of wealth ( the next oil ). If that is true, then china is the saudi arabia of data. Given their smartphone penetration and the size of the population and the continued urbanization.

Also, china is now building a hundred colleges every year. This is reminiscent of the US in the 1850-1900 when we went on a college building spree ( stanford, MIT, stevens, purdue, michigan state, cornell, UC, UT, endless list ) as a result of our economic growth. And it wasn't too long before we outstripped the british empire as the largest economy in the world and kept growing.

There are tons of reasons to expect that china will continue to grow and outstrip the US in the near future. But there are stark differences as well. China's growth isn't in a "asian-centric" world like the US growth was in a "western-centric" world. US overtaking britain wasn't as traumatic and/nor resisted event. The US has the most farmland, diverse territories stretching from the arctic to the caribbean to the western pacific. We had allies/etc that china lacks. We had the resources/oil/etc that china doesn't. So there are a lot of headwinds for china.

It should be interesting how things pan out. Considering our position in the western pacific ( a bazillion bases surrounding china ), I don't see how eventually, there won't be a war between china and the US. I don't see how china doesn't push us out of their 'backyard' sooner or later.

The thing is, I don't think this will end well for the US as long as its politically feasible to maintain the huge "investment" (political/economic) in military infrastructure that will provide nothing that will look like returns compared to a huge economic push would.

I'd say China benefits the longer the US is "forced" to spend what amounts a little more than half of this infrastructure project every year.

At best, I think the military expenditures the US puts out is good for protecting economic assets for all interested parties in/through volatility high areas, but it's not exactly something that all parties contribute to maintaining in proportion of the benefits they receive from it.

I don't really know what war in the 21st century will look like (I have some ideas), but so far it doesn't seem like its benefiting many people outside of those who get the contracts to enable such war making. So it seems like in stalemate that's present now, and arguably has been in place since ww2, it seems like non-state actors have more to gain.

From about 2005-2008 I used to live and own a house on the Laos and Burma borders of far south-western China and still often travel in the area. Laos is simply poor, being a landlocked mountainous country with minimal infrastructure or education surrounded by larger and more powerful neighbors. In the last 16 years, Laos has begun to get some better roads (largely with foreign investment), mobile telecommunications, a larger tourist industry, some dams and a great deal more rubber plantations. Otherwise, it is still a sleepy, mountainous, jungled backwater.

China has committed to building infrastructure to connect Laos and Thailand to Chinese rail and road networks. Relatively tiny Vietnam apparently made an expensive and partly abortive attempt to sponsor a road from Dien Bien Phu to Udomxai in the north, perhaps in a bid to counter growing Chinese influence, but China ran rings around them and the strategic significance or benefit of such a road is now negligible.

From an economic rationalist perspective, I think China just wants more markets. If you were a massive manufacturer with 14(?) land borders and awesome infrastructure expertise, you'd be building infrastructure to connect new markets too. I don't think there's any kind of evil Beijing geostrategic scheme at play here ... there's very little to gain by controlling Laos (which economically China already does in the north of the country) ... it just makes sense.

Some images of the northern Laos road to Dien Bien Phu in 2012 (dunno if this new non-Picasa Google Photo link works) @ https://get.google.com/albumarchive/106883718971909092529/al... or https://photos.google.com/album/AF1QipOJtgKiJZdgruRyZhNTUk2b...

There are repercussions of China's aggressive market hunting. Taking an example of Northern Laos, the Chinese have been buying farmlands and converting them into Banana farms. Lots of farmers have sold their land for good money. If you don't sell you land, you'll be a fool because a) the size of land isn't that big so you are dependent on your neighbours good will for letting the water flow into your patch b) the neighbours already sold their's to the Chinese. The Chinese also very cleverly opened a casino. So, now you have villages full of farmers who go to the casino and gamble the money back to the same people (because as the saying goes, the house always wins) who bought their lands. Lao women who used to work in their farms now work in these casinos. Drug abuse has always been a problem in Laos but with this inflow of cash, it has been exacerbated.

One might say, the Lao government is equally responsible - which is not entirely false. If a chinese company tried to buy an Indian farmer's land, there would be outrage but Laos is a tiny country so no real comparison. Anyway, the net result is a social impact that is far from the carrot of "economic growth".

{{citation-needed}} but perhaps. In my observation land has predominantly been used for rubber plantations rather than bananas. However, the rubber price crashed in recent years so a lot of the profits never materialized, maybe they are switching. Also, there are vast tracts (literally mountain after mountain as far as the eye can see of monoculture) of bananas inside of China (particularly in Wenshan prefecture, close to Vietnam), so on the fact of it it makes little sense to import them over bad roads from bad infrastructure regions in Laos.

I recently heard Charles Hess from InferFocus talk about the changes coming from China. The United States is about to be passed up in a big way due to Xi's "China Dream"

https://twitter.com/cervinventures/status/860307819030958080

What should the US do than? Spend our tax dollars on foreign handouts?

If US companies want to invest in SE Asia there is nothing stopping them.

I don't have an answer for you. But, I'd rather spend tax dollars building railroads in SE Asia than blowing up the Middle East. #Iraq2Trillion #neverforget

Dude, it is not 2 trillion by a long shot.

It is 268k ( https://www.iraqbodycount.org/ )

Dollars not deaths.

If we count trees as people, there is no difference

Did you really think he was talking about the body count?(Have 2 trillion people even ever lived...?) He's clearly talking about the projected cost of that war.

#neverforget

I believe he's referring to the economic cost being $2 trillion, not the death count.

Right now we're using the tools of taxation and legislation to transfer our country's wealth to 'elites' - mainly through taxation for 'defense' spending, patent law legislation, and finance.

Those choices are not obviously the ones that will have the most beneifical long term impact on our country's power.

There has been a lot of debate on India's refusal (for political reasons around disputed territory) to join the OBOR. Such debates are tempered by math that show that the trains are actually less efficient than shipping in lots of cases [1].

I wonder if the pure economic value , minus the investment leverage, still makes sense.

[1] https://m.rediff.com/news/column/india-doesnt-want-to-join-c...

It's interesting to note that China and India were the global economic juggernauts until only very recently:

(first google result to demonstrate the point) https://infogr.am/Share-of-world-GDP-throughout-history

Isn't this what the failed TPP trade deal was supposed to serve as a counter to?

I think that about 20% of TPP did, as you said, deal with real trade, but 80% dealt with treaties that would override individual nations' laws and use private 'courts' for disputes.

In terms of public perception, perhaps. In reality? The parent comment is correct: we let ourselves pick out the parts we didn't like, with a dash of knee-jerk opposition to "secrecy" on top, and completely ignored the broader context (trade, security, and international politics).

The good news is, against all odds, it looks like the other TPP members might forge ahead anyway even without the US (for now): https://www.google.com/amp/asia.nikkei.com/amp/Politics-Econ...

It wasn't concern for little countries or even anti-IP sentiment that killed the TPP in the US, though that provided useful cover, but nativism as embodied by Trump.

New Zealand, one of those little countries, just ratified the TPP a few days ago to "send a message" in support of free trade despite the US withdrawal:http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/330574/nz-govt-ratif...

No. Most of the TPP members aren't involved in the Belt and Road Initiative.

Somewhat hypocritical considering China's established track record of creating walled gardens around its own economy.

"a difficult three-hour drive over potholed roles from the capital"

s/roles/roads/

Incidentally I have done this three-hour drive. Horrible indeed. The potholes limit your speed to 20-30 mph. I kept thinking on the way "what would really be the cost to repave a ~100-mile 2-lane road?" And "how high on this country's priority list would this be?"

Calling this a new marshall plan is a powerful analogy.

Not sure I agree or disagree. The marshall plan was focused on gaining allies, so in theory it was more economically selfless than this. But even if not perfect the comparison makes you zoom out and take the long view.

Well, they build roads and trains. Something that they know. The Question: Will it be enough? Some people claim that there are no more reasonable investment opportunities left in China.

"The power plants in Pakistan, as well as upgrades to a major highway and a $1 billion port expansion, are a political bulwark. By prompting growth in Pakistan, China wants to blunt the spread of Pakistan’s terrorists across the border into the Xinjiang region, where a restive Muslim population of Uighurs resides."

Well, yes. But there may be other ways to do this. China just wants to have Pakistan as a close ally. If India is an ally of the US, it is a good idea to have an ally that can counter India.

Pakistan is closer ally than india for the US . Pakistan receives much more military aid alone every year than the Chinese investment

US is ally of Pakistan while China is rather a friend.

Certainly more forwardlooking than Trump.

But I don't think Official China's shadow is a moral one, even if it allows trade to flourish. I certainly hope that the citizens force their government to be more moral and have a better focus on human rights.

You cannot control Asia until the end game.

Unlike Risk this game NEVER ends. It will be played millennia to come

More like Axes & Allies?

Oh yes, China, with the authoritarian government lead by a dictator, and has proven to engage in unfair trade policies and dumping of goods, and supports an evil regime in north korea, is going to help the region grow! /s.

Seriously, only third world countries welcomes Chinese loans that will never be be repaid. The 'Belt and road' scheme has been shown to be a failure thus far. No smart nation wants to have its economy/community/jobs/manufacturing destroyed by an evil government, just for cheap, shoddily made goods

Besides, China has no trillions to spend. It's massively in debt, suffers from capital outflow and rich fleeing the country. It has middle income problem and demographics issues. It's heyday was 2007.

>>and supports an evil regime in north korea

For what it's worth, the only reason China "supports" North Korea is because they don't want to deal with the massive influx of refugees that would result from that regime's collapse.

If you think about the strain that a few million Syrian refugees are putting on Europe, you can hardly blame China for this stance.

Make no mistake though: China has no love for North Korea. I mean who would want a crazy mad man armed to the teeth right in their backyard?

> destroyed by an evil government, just for cheap, shoddily made goods

This attitude is why China managed to get itself out of poverty while other countries don't seem to get anywhere. While you may think phones made in China are cheap, shoddily made goods, guess what, there are billions of people in this world who don't have the financial resources of the 300M Americans to afford an iPhone.

The American model is to have a company create an amazing product at a very high cost (iPhone, Tesla) and have it "trickle down". What ends up happening are these companies monopolize the market, force everyone onto their ecosystem, and extract as much money as possible. Things do progress, but everyone gets locked into a system, and the company lacks incentive to keep innovating.

In China, they create cheap products, but in a few years, every single person has a smartphone. The technology is democratized and because of that, new technology can be built off that initial platform - now they are by far way ahead in things like fintech. Who cares if the product was initially cheap and shoddily made when the people there are upgrading their devices every year. The "cheap" device maker Xiaomi dropped to fourth place in China because consumers demanded more and more high end products. Within the space of a few years, the Chinese phone makers are making quality phones.

Its more like China vs Europe, USA would only benefit. USA can also use the same road to ship goods from West Coast to Europe.

You might want to look at a globe, the Pacific ocean is much larger than you appear to think.

The US and Russia have been talking on-again off-again since the 1990's about a sea tunnel from Alaska to Siberia.

It's interesting that a country of China's size works without any history of widespread religious belief.

Isn't the period from the end of the Three Kingdoms (~280AD) to the beginning of the Sui/Tang (~580AD) when Mahayana Buddhism evangelized China?

Isn't Buddhism a philosophy/approach to living rather than a religion?

You're thinking more of Theravada Buddhism which spread to Sri Lanka and Thailand, and the more recent Tibetan variety. The Mahayana version which took over China features statues of many different gods, often taken directly from Taoism.

China's history was mostly shaped by the "three teachings" of Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism, combined with a lot of folklore.

Religion was never allowed to gain any significant power by Chinese emperors. They often taxed then destroyed monasteries/churches.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Anti-Buddhist_Persecutio...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_China

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